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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple Your Rights Online

Copy Protected CD Makers Attempt iPod Support 113

Posted by pudge from the mmmmm-icrosoft dept.
andrewdski writes "C|Net is reporting that both SunnComm International and Macrovision are courting Apple in an attempt to make their copy-protected CDs compatible with the iPod. This is being portrayed as a significant blow to Microsoft's control over digital rights technology." The iPod concerns were raised in a previous article.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Copy Protected CD Makers Attempt iPod Support More

Copy Protected CD Makers Attempt iPod Support

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  • Copy protected CD? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @11:54AM (#9760177) Homepage
    If it's "copy protected", it's not a CD. Using the music industry's term is not the way to get non-geeks to understand the issue.

    Let's come up with a name that reflects the true nature of these things, stick to it, and start using it.
    • Limited play compact disk. Let's call them LPCD. Old timers will groan, but it's better than nothing.
    • CPD - Copy Protected Disc

      It's short, sweet, and to the point.
    • For some copy portection schemes, it can't even have the "Compact Disc" logo on it becasue it dosen't follow the format.

      They have deliberately violated the CD Audio specifications by not starting the data at the specified location, and storing data where it isn't supposed to be stored. Because such CDs do not follow the specifications co-created by Sony and Philips, Philips, like Apple, says such copy protected CDs are not Audio CDs, and will not allow their cases to display the Compact Disc logo.

      Quoted

      • Time to napalm my karma....

        Nobody outside out of Slashdot (yes I know where we are) gives a crap about this.

        geek: OMG! they violated the CD audio specs!!! LMAO!!
        joe public: look, shiny disc music thingies!

        If these things work in more CD players than not (let's all hope not), then the average comsumer will buy his music in the format offered by his local chain.

        He also wouldn't care if it was riddled with spyware, studded with RFID tags and not offered under an Open Source license.

        Beowulf is an u

      • I can say first hand that "velvet revolver - contraband" mentionned in the article does put the "compact disk digital audio" logo on the cd. It's smaller that usual but it's there. On the plastic wrap, there is a mention : protected cd or restricted cd, i'm not sure but once unwrapped, it looks like a regular cd

    • How about "virus protected CD"? Sure it's still not technically a CD but it gets the point across.
    • You're right, it's not a CD, it's a "copy protected CD." No new name needed.
    • Heise calls them Un-CDs [heise.de] (in German).
    • This is not necessarily true. The first generation of so-called copy-controlled or copy-protected discs were not compliant with the spec, but most newer ones are. Now they merely use a data track (as well as the audio ones) and a special driver that windows computers automatically load.

    • Re:Copy protected CD? (Score:3, Informative)

      by plj ( 673710 )
      If it's "copy protected", it's not a CD.

      Not exactly true. Every copyprotected CD-like disc out there relies to one of the following tricks:

      a. Deliberate RedBook errors on audio tracks. Used at least on Cactus Data Shield discs
      b. Data session at the end of the disc left deliberately unclosed. Used at least on Sony Key2Audio discs
      c. Audio obfuscation driver that relies on Windows autoplay for installation. Used at least on SunnComm MediaMax discs (complete analysis here [princeton.edu]).

      In the case c, the disc is perfect

  • Good (Score:4, Informative)

    by magefile ( 776388 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:01PM (#9760236)
    This adds another (easier) loophole. Import to iTunes, export to whatever. Or, import to iPod, plug into line-in. The more complexity they add, the more holes there'll be for legitimate (using the term in its pre-DMCA/INDUCE-IICA sense, of course) use.

    • Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NaugaHunter ( 639364 )
      What loophole? They are almost certainly trying to get Apple to import the songs as "Protected" and only allow exporting to iPods. Even these idiots would recognize that the iTunes software allows burning CDs from Apple's current DRM.
    • Maybe if Sunncomm and Macrovision piss off Microsoft by trying to suck up to Apple iPod users, Microsoft will squish them like bugs. They are powerful enough to do it, and have done it before.

  • No Crippled CDs, Period (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Michael_Burton ( 608237 ) <michaelburton@brainrow.com> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:02PM (#9760248) Homepage

    As much as I'm in favor of any "significant blow to Microsoft control", I won't support any attempt to replace Blue Book audio with any crippled format. I simply will not buy crippled "CDs"; I don't care how many different flavors of DRM are included for my convenience.

    • Don't you mean Red Book? Yellow book is data, orange book is cd-r/w, white is vcd, and blue is multisession audio/data cds. You could well mean blue, since blue book is becoming more and more common, but i dislike the move away from plain old reliable red book.

      • Don't you mean Red Book?

        I suppose I do.

        Oh, I hate it when I pretend to know more than I do, and wind up making an even bigger fool of myself. Thanks for the informative clarification.

        • Blue Book is the guide from Kelley to used car pricing in the US...

          In a completely unrelated development, their website, http://www.kbb.com/, is the only one we've heard of yet that publicly disclosed being infected by the download.ject exploit code. Good for them for coming forwards.

  • It seems like the iPod (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hype7 ( 239530 ) <u3295110.anu@edu@au> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:04PM (#9760270) Journal
    ... is the biggest single obstacle the music industry has from ramming really nasty DRM down all our throats. The very nature of Apple's terms has stopped WMP dead in its tracks, and it's going to make the labels think twice with future formats like DVD-A and SACD.

    I sincerely hope that they get the fact that people will pay for convenience, quality and portability. I think that as soon as they get that, the file sharing apps are going to seriously head south. They've got convenience with the iTunes music store, portability is ok (average at best), but they need a lot of work on quality (I'd like to see a lossless version of the digital master recording made available).

    Get all three of those, and I'd pay up to double what they're presently charging.

    -- james
    • It does appear as if the Recording Industry was only humoring Apple when they licensed their music for iTunes only a year ago. Probably thought, "this will never take off." Shows what they know.
    • Did I miss the announcement that DRM was being removed from Apple's AAC files? I can mass-covert them to handy MP3 format now so they'll play in my car?
      • DRM protected or not, you've always been able to do this. Play the AAC file in one program, in another program, record the stereo mix. Save as an mp3. Boom! You are done.

        I don't know why the RIAA is spending so much money on making it difficult to create mp3's. If you can listen to it, you can make an mp3/ogg/aac/wmv file out of it. All it takes is 1 person to upload it to the internet and bam! There goes the money they invested to "protect" it.

        About the only effective thing to stop people from being able
    • and it's going to make the labels think twice with future formats like DVD-A and SACD.

      Am I the only one who read "DVD-A" as DVDA [wikipedia.org]?

    • They'll head north. To Soviet Russia!
  • Real CDs and MP3s continue to be compatible with everything.

    --Mike--

    Did you know the Pentagon lost $1,000,000,000 in CASH!?!?

  • No problem (Score:3, Funny)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:07PM (#9760300)
    Apple will have no qualms arbitrarily altering the current iTunes DRM scheme to suit Macrovision's desires.

    • Re:No problem (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nine-times ( 778537 )
      'Apple will have no qualms arbitrarily altering the current iTunes DRM scheme to suit Macrovision's desires.'

      And where do you get that from? Apple has agreed to DRM for their iTunes music store, under pressure from the RIAA (who wouldn't agree to any of the music to be put into iTunes' catalogue without DRM), but Apple has also insisted that DRM be fairly non-obtrusive. (if the DRM on iTMS gets too annoying, no one will use it anymore)

      Apple has even refused to give the iPod WMA-playback capability. I me

      • Releases of iTunes often include subtle changes in the licensing model for music that you purchased in the past.

        Thus far, the changes have been trivial; but since nobody called Apple to task for arbitrarily changing licensing terms ex post facto, they'll feel free to do so again in the future.

        • Re:No problem (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Johnny Mnemonic ( 176043 )

          Releases of iTunes often include subtle changes in the licensing model

          If by "often" you mean "once."
          • Once is enough.
          • And with the option of future changes any time they like. I'll stick to buying and ripping used CDs, thank you, though--not a cent to the RIAA and perfectly legal, until they can buy away the Doctrine of First Sale.
            • Nice thing about the iPod is you CAN rip it yourself and are not required to buy it. The popularity of the iPod could also derail the future of other nasty restrictive DRMed CDs too and preserve your ability to rip new music.

        • Re:No problem (Score:3, Informative)

          by nine-times ( 778537 )
          Thus far, the changes have been trivial; but since nobody called Apple to task for arbitrarily changing licensing terms ex post facto, they'll feel free to do so again in the future.

          That seems like a bit of a leap. Maybe it would be more reasonable to say:

          'Releases of iTunes has once included subtle changes in the licensing model for music that you purchased in the past. Since nobody called Apple to task for arbitrarily making trivial changes in the past, they may feel more comfortable making trivial ch

          • Why is that a leap?

            The license agreement allows Apple to modify the terms of the agreement with subsequent releases of iTunes.

            You CAN stave off licensing changes by not upgrading, of course, but you may lose functionality in the future by not doing so.
            • The changes to licensing only effect new music purchased through iTMS. Old songs continue to have old licensing terms enforced.
            • 'Why is that a leap?'

              Saying "Apple got away with a trivial change to the DRM, so now they'll start changing it a lot." is a bit of a leap. There's no reason that the second half of that sentence necessarily follows the second.

              Apple tends to be pretty responsive to its customers, and I'm sure Apple understands that the entire reason they are the most successful online music distributer is that they were the first of have reasonable licensing and DRM. I'm sure they know that their customers will stop using

        • Thus far, the changes have been trivial; but since nobody called Apple to task for arbitrarily changing licensing terms ex post facto, they'll feel free to do so again in the future.

          is that why the songs that i purchased with iTunes 4 say FairPlay Version 1 in the info, while songs purchased with iTunes 4.5 say FairPlay Version 2? that indicates to me that these songs have a different set of restrictions (number of burns/playlist, and number of authorized computers)
          • is that why the songs that i purchased with iTunes 4 say FairPlay Version 1 in the info, while songs purchased with iTunes 4.5 say FairPlay Version 2?

            I don't think so. Some developers had created programs that would strip the DRM from the AAC file, so Apple revised Fairplay, only to have the same developers adjust their method of stripping the DRM. It's pretty futile, but Apple has to keep the RIAA happy.

      • I do recall Jobs mentioning how they tried to explain to the Music Execs that DRM was pretty much useless but that they wouldn't listen. So it is ironic that the thing Apple tried to argue against is the very thing that is locking every single one of Apple's competitors out, thus allowing Apple to dominate. Any MP3 player could play AAC if they wanted. What they can't do is play AAC files with Apple's DRM. Funny how things work out in the end.

  • Something good comes out of this... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:10PM (#9760332) Homepage
    'This is being portrayed as a significant blow to Microsoft's control over digital rights technology.'

    Of course it's a blow to MS's control of DRM. They've been pushing everyone to use WMA, which not only would increase their control over DRM, but increase their control over media distribution in general.

    Pushing everyone into WMA is a great example of Microsoft using it's near-monopoly to increase its control on other sectors of industry. I, for one, am glad Apple has chosen not to support WMA. Sure, you might argue that choosing to only support their own DRM scheme is anti-competitive on Apple's part, too, but I'd rather see a company limit its player to one DRM scheme than see all music everywhere put into a single DRM scheme, controlled by one company. Besides, I don't believe Apple has the sort of control over any market that Microsoft.

    In any event, Apple/iTunes/iPod has brought the annoyance of DRM and it's conflict with fair use more into the forefront, which is what I've been predicting for a while now. (which is good)

    • Re:Something good comes out of this... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jord ( 547813 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:59PM (#9761049)
      you might argue that choosing to only support their own DRM scheme is anti-competitive on Apple's part

      You can only be anti-competitive if you are a monopoly. Apple is not a monopoly and therefore cannot be anti-competitive.

      Calling Apple anti-competitive in this area is like calling Sony anti-competitive because their mini-disc players do not support the industry standard 80cm Compact Disc.

      • You can only be anti-competitive if you are a monopoly. Apple is not a monopoly and therefore cannot be anti-competitive.

        Calling Apple anti-competitive in this area is like calling Sony anti-competitive because their mini-disc players do not support the industry standard 80cm Compact Disc.

        I don't know... Maybe this isn't technically right, but it seems to me that business moves are cooperative, competitive, or anti-competitive. Apple working with the makers of KHTML is cooperative. Apple trying to make

        • It definitely is not technically accurate. I am sure you can do your own research in this area.

          BTW, Apple also includes Internet Explorer with the OS along with Safari not to mention that Safari can be 100% removed from the operating system with no harm. This is different than the other situation where a web browser is included with an operating system.

          Including software or requiring certain pieces of hardware to only work with certain pieces of software is not anti-competitive. It may be unpleasant

          • It definitely is not technically accurate.

            sheesh... what I meant by "this may not be technically accurate..." was "This may not be what some technical legalese term means by 'anticompetitive', but this is what I mean by 'anti-competitive'."

            You see, words sometimes have meanings. They sometimes have multiple meanings. Sometimes people even use words in ways that are not the same as the standard, technical, definition meaning. The word "misdemeanor", for example, has a legal technical sense of a crime wh

            • You sir are an idiot. Just so we are clear on the meaning of that word, here is the definition:

              A human being destitute of the ordinary intellectual powers, whether congenital, developmental, or accidental; commonly, a person without understanding from birth; a natural fool; a natural; an innocent.

              Making up your own definitions for words does not make you right. Or perhaps your definition of words differs from others?

              But hey, say whatever you want, this is /. after all. I am sure your post will get m

              • 'You sir are an idiot.'

                Ok, my good sir. Now that I know who I'm dealing with, I will respond to you on you're own level:

                I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say about me bounces off and sticks to you. Na na nana na na.

                I hope your obvious genious finds my rebuttal to be appropriate for the level of debate you've begun.

    • Your comment got me to thinking...

      Could the reason Apple has refused to license its DRM out because they WANT it to fail? By not making it compatible with anything, it'll drive up the fury in consumers when future products are even more limited and lock-in is even worse. When the massive consumer backlash occurs, Apple simply strips DRM from their systems and they come out a champion. And, lastly, Jobs can sleep well at night knowing that he did his part to fight DRM in his own subtle way.

      If you can't bea
      • 'When the massive consumer backlash occurs, Apple simply strips DRM from their systems and they come out a champion. And, lastly, Jobs can sleep well at night knowing that he did his part to fight DRM in his own subtle way.'

        I'm not sure it's that simple. If Apple restricts their DRM too much, they'll just lose all their iTMS customers. The rumors 'round the 'net (some from Apple people) is that Apple doesn't like DRM, including their own. Adding DRM at all was a hesitant concession from Apple, based on

  • Hey! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    What was that NASA budget story doing here on MacSlash? Glad to see we're back on topic.
  • If so, something here smells awfully fishy.

  • if you don't know how to shut off the 'feature' known as autoplay, in turn making such things pointless. Then you don't deserve to steal music.

    all kidding aside now.

    Me being a proud owner/fan of an iPod, I think this a good idea for apple to get their product pimped out to even more people. Not that they haven't done so already through their stallar marketing campaign concerning all thins iPod and iTunes.

    In an iPod related note, my little cousin showed me the 'ipod' he wanted. It was in fact a Dell Brick

  • In order to play the songs on your iPod (Score:4, Funny)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:45PM (#9760878)
    You will have to hold down the action button while loading the cd.

  • Fairplay won't work on CD in its current form (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jdb8167 ( 204116 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @12:57PM (#9761017)
    Something that no one seems to notice in these articles is that Fairplay as it currently implemented won't work on a CD. Fairplay includes your user id and encrypted atoms in the AAC container based on your user id. A CD will necessarily have to have a static encryption model. As far as I know, Fairplay doesn't do that.

    I don't think that Apple will have much interest in changing their DRM to accommodate the CD DRM companies since doing nothing will have the same effect. If users can't use their iPods then I don't think that Suncomm or Macrovision DRM is going to become an industry standard.

    • Re:Fairplay won't work on CD in its current form (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @01:07PM (#9761146)
      I don't think that Apple will have much interest in changing their DRM to accommodate the CD DRM companies since doing nothing will have the same effect.

      There are two reasons Apple won't do this. 1) Economical. They'd rather sell the controlled music through the iTunes Music Store. 2) Usability. You know damn well Suncomm and Macrovision aren't going to label these things as protected unless they have to, and Apple doesn't want to deal with "Why can I burn songs from CD A but not B?".
      • There are two reasons Apple won't do this. 1) Economical. They'd rather sell the controlled music through the iTunes Music Store.

        Not so sure about that. Remember, Jobs has stated *repeatedly* that iTMS as a revenue source is not doing too well. They just don't make a lot of money. They make all their money off iPods.

        Of course, as a student of history (recent, at least), I have to wonder if that statement is to play down the fact that they still want massive marketshare in the online music industry... so th

  • Why the hell would Apple do this? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @01:36PM (#9761417)
    Vultures: Dear Apple Computer. As you know we are the market leaders..blah blah..our products are used in..blah blah. We have an exciting proposition for you! We'd like you to make your products DO LESS, COST MORE, and BE MORE COMPLICATED! And in exchange for this awesome upgrade, we'll let you use our hip logo which means nothing to consumers!

    The Steve: Let me get this straight. Our music player is #1. Our service is #1. We sold more units (100,000,000) in the past few months than you can conceive in one meeting without calling in your accountant. Customers are happy. Record labels are happy. *We're* happy (it's been 3 months since the financal press called us "beleagured").

    We've found the right balance to keep the record companies happy. Record labels small and large are banging on our door. The few holdout artists are looking pretty silly.

    After discussing this with the others we have come to the conclusion that you should go fuck yourself. Thanks.
  • If I can't rip it to FLAC using standard ripping software (without insane amounts of errors) and play it back with my choice of playback application, I'm not interested. Why should I *pay* to get less access to my music than if I just pirate it?

    I wish people weren't so willing to put up with low quality rips and silly copy protection; maybe iTunes would look a little more like Magnatune or allofmp3 if people were a little less easy to please.

  • Fishing expedition... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chief Typist ( 110285 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @01:47PM (#9761532) Homepage
    Both Macrovision and Sunncom seem like their on a fishing expedition -- and C|net is playing along.

    Apple declined comment and MSFT only says "we don't know what they're up to".

    Apple doesn't want DRM anymore than the rest of us -- the first version of the iPod had none [wired.com]. And I'm sure they could really give a crap about physical media when their whole business model is based on networked media.

    -ch

  • Only 3 Possibilities (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bricklets ( 703061 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @01:54PM (#9761624)
    I can think of only three ways these companies can get their technology to work in an "iPod Nation":

    + Convince Apple to make iPods play WMV (fat chance)

    + Convince Apple to make iTunes burn protected AAC files only (no mp3 or unprotected AAC anymore. again, fat chance)

    + Convince Apple to kill off the iPod, hence making it a Windows Media Nation once again (better chance of this happening than the other two).

    By complying with these companies, Apple gains nothing but may lose something. In fact, it can be argued that music CDs that do not work with iPods only encourages iTunes sales. I remember reading the customer reviews of Contraband on Amazon. 9 of the the 10 most helpful reviews rate the music as 1-star solely b/c of copy protection. But you can easily go online and buy that CD off of iTunes which, surprise, does work with your iPod.

    Audio compression concerns aside, buying a music CD off of iTunes is a whole lot easier than buying it off of Amazon or even your local music store. CD protection schemes only drives iTunes ease of use into the consumer's head further.

  • Contraband Negative Customer Reviews Removed??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bricklets ( 703061 ) on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @02:19PM (#9761902)
    Hey, what happened to all the customer reviews on Amazon for Contraband. A huge number of them gave it a bad rating because of the copy protection. But now ALL of these reviews have disappeared.

    What happened? See for youself over Here [amazon.com]
    • Interesting point, but can you see why Amazon would do this? Since when is a review based on the media or delivery technology pertinent to the subjective quality of the art itself (music, movies, whatever)? "This week on Ebert and Roeper...two thumbs down for Spiderman 2. The theater we saw it in had some sort of technology in place that prevented us from shooting the screen with our camcorder."
      • Since when is a review based on the media or delivery technology pertinent to the subjective quality of the art itself (music, movies, whatever)?

        Interesting points as well. But it is pertinent to the review when the product is considered defective. The customers were complaining of such things as not being able to play the music on an iPod and the CD secretly installing drivers on their computer without permission.

        And whereas at a traditional store the CD cover gave you a warning that it contained copy

        • But it is pertinent to the review when the product is considered defective.

          Pertinent to the review, yes. I'll buy that. Include comments like this in your Amazon reviews and let it affect them. But when reviews are based solely on criticisms like that (which it sounded to me like the ones that were removed were), they start to lose sight of the big picture, in my opinion.

          I point to my earlier example, which was intended to illustrate the idea that reviews like that tend would tend to sound ridiculous

          • Not in most situations, but if you google online you'll see complaints on how the CD will not play at all in some cases. Some reviews on Amazon had claimed that the CD would not play on their computer at all. Take them for what they're worth. I cannot verify their claims.

            But is being able to play on your computer or stereo any different from being able to play on you iPod? When I get in my car, I plug in my iPod and not some CD. I listen to my iPod when I workout, when I walk outside, when I'm studying, wh

            • You had people asking (or begging perhaps) for help on how to remove the "trojan" drivers that was installed. They didn't understand why even after having returned the CD to Amazon the drivers were still on their computer. A lot of reviews were also lambasting Amazon for not being upfront about the CD being copy-protected, and perhaps they didn't like that as well.

              Now *that* is interesting. If the DRM or whatever cripples the art to that extent, I'd have to side with you. I mistakingly assumed the revie

      • The problem is really with the media. Amazon ought to know this: after all, their reviews in other media (books, video) sometimes carry the disclaimer "this review refers to the hardcover version" or something similar.

        And yes, I can imagine a movie critic slamming the DVD release of a movie due to poor quality, and writing a synopsis like "Great movie, but the DVD is to terrible to buy".
  • I have a simple solution ... make the disks adhere to the Red Book standard, so that can be treated as compact discs. Oops, that makes SunnComm International and Macrovision irrelavent, not that I care. Saves Apple loads of effort, and money, and the listeners a load of grief.
  • I was recently given a Japanese CD as a gift. The CD label claimed it had copy protection and would not work on a Mac. However, iTunes ripped the music off it just fine. I don't know why kind of protection it uses. In the linked article many people claimed that the copy protection didn't block them from ripping other CDs too.

    Is this really an issue?
  • Fortunately the iPod is at the popularity level where people say "wtf, this CD is broken because it won't work with my iPod!" rather than "damn, this crappy Apple product won't play my music right!"

    iTunes for windows helped this along a long ways. Nobody was sympathetic that these CDs might not play on Macs; but because an iPod under windows is considered an MP3 player rather than some kooky bass-ackwards Apple product, people will bitch about the CD and not the player.

    Thank god. Sick of people criticiz

    • Re:iPod popularity (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Except they played perfectly on Macs.

      The DRM they are talking about uses the Windows autoplay feature to install software on your computer that stops you from copying the CD. It then loads up pre-ripped WMA files.

      So if you are on Mac/Linux, the software shouldn't load, and everything should rip fine. If you're on Windows, you have to turn autoplay off or hold the SHIFT key when inserting your CD.

      People are now using iTunes for Windows to play all their music, and hook up with their iPods. These can't

  • All it takes is one cracked copy to be leaked online for it to be proliferated for downloading. Copy protecting a CD just makes it more difficult for the masses to legitimately get it onto their computers and MP3 players, and it creates a greater demand to download songs illegaly. Not to mention a lot of music that people download are rare music tracks they can't find at the local music store anyway.

    Having CD's that don't use copy protection allows users not only have backups of their music, but it also a

  • iTMS obsoletes copy-protected CDs anyway (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Steve Cowan ( 525271 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @09:23AM (#9768964) Journal
    I have bought one copy-protected audio CD (Kraftwerk - Tour De France Sountracks) and it is a pain in the ass. It won't play in my iBook, and it won't play in 95% of computers I have put it in.

    It comes with a Windows player installer that wants to copy multiple files to the HD, and a buggy Mac player that crashes my iBook in 9.2 and quits as soon as it is launched in Panther.

    (It plays just like any other CD in my Sawtooth G4's stock DVD-ROM drive).

    Don't these people realize that a lot of people nowadays use a computer instead of a standard CD player to listen to their music?

    If I had an iPod and the iTunes Music Store was available in my country (Canada! cmon Apple!) , I would have bought the album online, paid less money, and I'd be able to listen to it anywhere.

    Copy protection on audio CD's is far worse than Apple's DRM. If I were Apple I'd let the people doing the copy protection futz around trying to make their product actually work, while the iTMS model continues to gain momentum as a better way to buy music.

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